Please note that this article is free for personal use only. No unauthorized use or copying is permitted. If you intend on reprinting, distributing, copying, or linking to this article, please contact us or call 1-877-77ETHIC. We welcome media inquiries and reciprocal links. Return to Article Archives.

Nothing puts the brakes on good ethics faster than an erosion of respect. Can you remember a time when the happy bubble of respect for someone popped and how the resulting downhill slide of your attitude affected your entire perspective? One day you're a happy employee and the next a disgruntled one. Whether you've been handed the short end of the stick or not, when respect is gone, it's war.

There are certain attitudes that create mental and emotional barriers to getting and giving respect. Good ethics starts between the ears, with our thoughts and attitudes. An ethical person is a respectful person and a respectful person is generally an ethical person. In order to get a handle on our slippery ethical life we need to identify and block certain thoughts and attitudes that allow disrespect to creep into our lives.

Now, this doesn't mean that you ignore important issues, take it on the chin, or run from a just fight. It means that you avoid certain ways of thinking that serve no purpose other than to make things ethically worse. Theses are barriers to respect.

Selfishness: Positioning yourself at the center of everything leads you to look down on rules and people you dislike. This is where the trouble starts. An ethical person can't be a selfish person. Look at someone who is always cutting corners and you'll see a person who is only looking out for number one. Respect is all about thoughtfulness, deference, and consideration. Selfishness is in direct opposition to respect and will erode it quicker than anything else.

Negative Attitude: A negative attitude can subtly lead the most ethically conscious person into crisis if left alone. The problem is that negativity is rarely confined to a single topic. It might start with one issue, but left to run its course it can spread like a cancer to other areas of life. A bad work assignment might get the ball of negativity rolling and before you know it the whole company seems corrupt and out to get you. You think that you haven't changed a bit, just everyone else. Negativity can be addicting and lead to a vicious cycle that is difficult to shake off.

Rejecting Authority: Every employee in every company must come to terms with how he or she deals with authority. "Authority" can refer to a person, a company or governing body, or even a higher moral or spiritual authority that guides our life. Respecting authority is a universal virtue and requires fundamental respect for others. We need to understand that authority has a genuine purpose and a place. It is the cornerstone of our civilized society. The process of losing respect can start small and grow to become an attitude that taints our thoughts and ethical judgment.

Anger: Who hasn't been angry with his or her employer at one time or another? Although there's nothing inherently wrong with anger, it's what you do with it that matters. A hotheaded supervisor or employee who lets loose on a tirade will see respect evaporate before his or her eyes. In anger, dangerous things are said. Rational thought and good judgment (which are pretty important to ethics) are completely eclipsed by human emotion. Be careful about letting anger fester. Deal with it. Talk about it. Turn anger into constructive action.

Peer Pressure: It's easy to lose respect for someone or something simply because everyone else does. The easiest rules to break are those that everyone breaks. It's hard to care when no one else does. Ethics, defined by the behavior of the majority can be shaky at best depending on the group. Ethics is based on principles. Peer pressure is never an excuse for bad behavior. You need to make your own choices and be able to live with yourself.

Personal Biases: The most overt barrier to respect is to simply choose not to respect because of a personal bias. For whatever reason, you just don't like someone. Ethics is about playing fair and there's nothing more unfair than basing your likes or dislikes on stereotypes or biases. Giving people a fair shake and judging them on their competence and character shows respect.

Taking the high road to good ethics at work is fraught with roadblocks. Passing through them requires us to elevate respect from a feeling to a character component. Learning to function in an attitude of respect for people, policies, and property yields rewards for others as well as ourselves.